Spring is upon us! That means yard clean ups, graduations and the Spring Glen Oaks Dumpster! Please make sure to read through to the end. As always, please reach out if you have any questions.
New Glen Oaks HOA Board Officers
New Glen Oaks HOA Board Officers were elected at the last meeting, and we are excited to announce Bucky Polk as our new HOA Board President! Please join us in welcoming him to his new position!
Graduation Banner
Do you have a graduate this year? Whether it’s Pre-K all the way up through Post-Graduate degrees – we want to celebrate them all! Please send an email to glenoaksbod@gmail.com with your graduate’s first name and school that they will be graduating by May 10th. We will have a banner at the neighborhood entry in mid-May.
Community Garage Sale
This year’s Garage Sale will be on May 31-June 1st from 9am-2pm. Due to potentially high traffic volumes in our neighborhood, please keep an eye on kids and pets. Visit www.castlepinesconnection.com/sale to sign up your home for the event.
Spring Dumpster
We are happy to announce that our spring dumpster will be back. The dumpster will arrive on Friday, June 7th and will be removed the morning of Monday, June 10th. Please see the list of Unacceptable Materials from HBS. The dumpster will be located near the open space on Glen Ridge Dr.
Summer 2024 Fire Mitigation
As discussed at the annual meeting, the Board has been exploring the best fire mitigation options to keep our neighborhood as safe as possible from wildfires. As you may know, in partnership with the Douglas County Fire Department and the City of Castle Pines, Glen Oaks has contracted a company to provide natural fire mitigation by bringing goats into our 6.5 acre portion of the open space to eat the scrub oak in recent years. This natural approach provides protection by creating a ‘fire canopy’ and naturally preventing green overgrowth in future seasons.
While the goats are a wonderful tactic in fire mitigation, they are not the only approach necessary to reduce our risk. If you have been in the open space recently, you may have noticed a large amount of extremely thick/overgrown and dead scrub oak in our open space. It has been over 10 years since Glen Oaks addressed the thick and dead scrub oak which is also a large fire risk that the goats cannot address.
Last year, due to the extremely wet 2023 Spring and Summer seasons, the board chose to skip a year of the goats with the intent of saving the funds to support thinning of the scrub oak and removing dead trees in the 2024 season.
We are pleased to report that through a combination of a 2024 Community Wildfire Mitigation Grant awarded by the City of Castle Pines, along with the funds saved from 2023 that we will be able to complete the project this summer at NO ADDITONAL COST to Glen Oaks residents! (last time it was done, it required a $300 special assessment per household). The project will commence mid-summer (likely late June/early July). We will provide more details once the start date and project schedule is finalized.
Construction Update
As the reconstruction of Monarch Boulevard continues through the Spring and into Summer (and Fall!) you may stay up to date on the project by visiting the City of Castle Pines website here. As a reminder, the project completion improvements include:
- Complete roadway tear out and asphalt replacement
- Safety enhancements
- Stormwater infrastructure improvements
- Six-foot bike lanes
- 4,300 feet of new water line by the Castle Pines North Metropolitan District
If you have any questions or concerns regarding the project not covered on the city website, please email monarch@castlepinesco.gov or call 303-705-0200.
Update on gated entrance discussion at annual meeting
At the annual HOA meeting, the topic of installing a gated entrance of Glen Oaks was raised again. Opinions were shared both in favor of adding a gate and not adding a gate. The Board took an action item to look into this a bit further to provide some feedback to our HOA. We wanted to gather some information to see if, in fact, the addition would be cost prohibitive. While the Board did not undertake a comprehensive or scientific project, we were able to preliminarily learn that the addition would be quite prohibitive. Here are the following considerations:
- Cost of the gate installation – brief online research yielded purchase and installation costs between $7k-$18k.
- Snowplowing – Other gated communities in Castle Pines pay in the neighborhood of $150-$200 per month in dues for snow removal. We would have to add a similar number to our dues.
- Purchasing the roads in Glen Oaks – this was difficult to ascertain a specific price, but it is the Board’s understanding that our HOA would have to purchase the roads within the HOA back from the city. Our assumption is that this would be quite expensive. Ultimately, the Board would need to continue further investigation with regard to this point.
We had not even considered the need to purchase the roads back when the discussion came up at the annual HOA meeting. But it came up quickly once we started to research.
For the reasons above, it seems that a neighborhood who wishes to have an entrance gate needs to plan to be gated from original design and build. Otherwise, it would be extremely expensive. The same seems to be true about a swimming pool. Once the neighborhood is built, it is difficult to add big ticket items like these. Lastly, if it is something we’d like to pursue, we would need to get approval from the majority of our 67 homeowners.
We hope this further investigation is helpful.
*Reminder about Snowplowing – related to the fact that we don’t own our roads, Glen Oaks is subject to the city plowing. The city makes the schedule and decides when they will plow our (city) streets. This can be very frustrating, but it’s our reality.
The Board has had ongoing conversations with the city and their subcontractors about plowing. We’ve been a bit more pleased with their secondary efforts to plow and remove snow. We will continue to look for ways to improve our snow removal before next Winter.
BOARD MEETING
Our Board meetings are always open to anyone who would like to attend. If you have something you’d like to bring up, or just want to learn more about what we do…contact any Board member or email glenoaksbod@gmail.com to get more information on how you can attend.
Thanks for reading! We hope everyone is enjoying the warmer weather and has a wonderful Spring! Remember, you may reach the Board at any time by emailing glenoaksbod@gmail.com.
All the best,
Your Glen Oaks HOA Board